Paul Anthony Heil

Interviewed by Cara Doyle

Interview June 29, 2002

transcribed by Diana Copsey Adams

 

This is Cara Doyle. It is June 29^th and we are at the Como Reunion and I am talking with Paul Heil. How about that? And we will explain that we are sitting outside and that groups of people are coming and going so if there is a little noise in the background, we are at a reunion.

Paul, can you tell me where your family originally, when you family originally came to Como who was the first person to come here?

My Dad came here in 1909 and my Mom came out visiting from Ohio and he met her. They’re both from Ohio.

Oh really?

And he met her in, I don’t know, ’24 or ’25, they married in ’25.

OK, in 1925. And what was your Dad/s name?

Charles, “Charlie,” everybody knew him by Charlie.

Charlie, and was that name Heil also, Charlie Heil?

Yeah, and brother is Chuck. My mother is Louise Clara. And Jane is Louise Jane but she goes by LJ.

OK, so your Dad landed here in 1909, why did he come?

He was interesting in gold. (long silent gap in tape)

In the hard rock mine, so they tried placer mining because it was cheaper?

They got rich in placer and then they put it all back in the tunnel. I think it runs, I think it is 1500 and some feet but then they quit. You remember the shaft house that was in the film? They were trying to strike the vein that went down from the shaft house because that was really good gold in there. I think it was $225 bucks a ton back then when it was $20 bucks an ounce.

And so, but you said they never really made it? In the tunnel?

They didn’t get to it, either that or it petered out before it got down to their depth. But I don’t know that they ever cut that vein and that is the Mineral Ranch vein the lady was talking about.

OK, so 1911 they hit it big with the placer gold, and how many gentlemen were involved?

Four, four, and they are in the paper, the four partners.

OK, it was your Dad and was it the (?) then?

Well, the Looks (sp?) was part of it. The other three names besides my Dad that are in the paper one of them I think was a Look, but there was two brothers of Looks.

OK, did he ever make it big again?

Not in mining. He spent a good part of his life, most everybody died broke in mining. People start with more money.

So he hit it once and that was it?

Pretty much, yeah.

Now, he married your Mom and her name again was?

Louise Clara Riedel. German as they can be both, both German.

OK, and when they got married where did they settle?

In Denver, that’s where most of us kids was born, three of us.

Kids, what were their names?

Chuck was my brother, my older brother, and my younger sister, Jane.

OK, and when did you come back to Como then?

I kind of, we had the house right over here, the Ditman (?) house here in town in the thirties and . . .

OK, I think I want to say, your sister said maybe 1935 she thought?

Probably, she’s probably right, I don’t remember exactly.

OK, do you know why you came back to Como.

Well, kids here, went to school here, liked it. Dad had somewhat of a living here in mining. We left because when the war started everybody wanted to work the effort more or less and that’s when Dad got a job down in Denver so we went back to Denver then.

OK, tell me about your time at the Como school, which actually we are sitting on the front deck of the school right now. Can you tell me something about going to school here?

It was interesting. I remember the teachers, one of the teachers came up here way back in the eighties when she was very elderly, Mrs. Theed (sp?) and Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Jacobs had a bunch of kids here and one of the kids used to come to the reunion couple of years ago, I hope he is OK now. Victor Jacobs.

How many kids typically were in school with you? How many were there?

Oh, probably at max about 25 or 30 for the two classes, eight grades, you know in the two classes. And then the little high school there for a year or two.

The high school was here as well?

In that little building right over here.

Right next door? OK. Now did that go all the way through? Someone I thought mentioned going to Alma or Fairplay eventually.

Well, she said it quit here, I think she said in ’46 or something. See, I wasn’t here then. We  . . .

So you went all the way through school here? OK

Yeah.

And now you told me a story that you remembered about the war. Can you tell me about the day that the radio was on in your classroom?

They bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and then the next day it was on the radio when Roosevelt declared war on them. The reason I remember it so well ‘cause it was on my birthday.

Your birthday?

December 8^th, yeah.

Oh, tell me, you guys were telling some stories about, as kids, what you did to help the war effort?

Oh, well, we picked arnica flowers for the drug that was in it for the war thing, I think it was a, they were saying today I don’t know it’s something like a sulfa drug or something

Some kind of like a topical medicine or something?

Yeah, definitely something in them.

Yeah. I think she said it was like 8 cents a pound, so that was a lot of flowers.

I don’t remember how much, that was Doris Martin the one who told you that. Eight cents a pound.

Was that much money at that point? I mean, were you doing it for the money or were you doing it ‘cause you thought it was helping things?

I think us kids were playing, like I say, we were playing a lot. But we did, we got a few pounds or whatever. But the parents, they all worked pretty hard, it was for the dollar as well as helping.

And then you talked about looking for metal, too, for the war.

Yeah, me and my brother, you know all the narrow gauge that used to run on all the cinders down there, there was a lot of ? And copper and pieces of stuff that you’d find. And we’d go digging and scratching and sell it to the guy that, you know, it was all primarily for the war.

How was it collected?

Well, there was a junk dealer in town and he would just buy it from us kids for whatever it was a pound then. I don’t remember, but we made our candy money that way.

So you’d take it to the junk man and then he would get it to whatever. OK, tell me about the fruit trucks. You guys got in some trouble.

Oh, sure, well we used to, one of us would hide behind the building and the guy in the fruit truck would come in to sell fruit and one of us would run out behind the truck real quick so he couldn’t see us in the mirror and then throw the fruit off to the rest of the kids running along behind and of course he would see us in the mirror and stop.

And get mad?

Yeah.

Don’t remember his name do you?

No, I don’t. No.

Now what else did you do?

I feel for the guy.

I know, you feel badly.

Well, I tell you what you do. You remember what you’ve done that you shouldn’t have done, you know. And I remember shooting ? Jacobs. He was crawling up, there was deal where they hauled the coal up on a kind of trestle thing and dumped the coal out, it was real high, and he was afraid to walk up it because of the cracks between and he was crawling and I shot him in the butt with a b-b gun. Naturally I remember that and I apologized to him many years later and he didn’t remember it. But I did because it was not a nice act. Yeah. See.

OK, I’m starting again. We paused for a minute for some noise and to capture my dog. We were talking about, we were talking about kids and what kids did in the days in Como growing up. Tell me what else you did for fun. Were there sports time? Did you ride horses? Did you play in the mines?

We rode all the donkeys. There was wild donkeys here and we had to kind of like tame them. I think the sheep herders had them. And I knew the names of all of them and everything and we particularly liked the one I, the one named Shorty. Her ears had frostbitten off, had short ears. Yeah, we used to do that quite a bit.

One silly thing we did. We had just two wagon wheels, you know, there was an axle. We’d balance on that and go riding down the hill, two kids, and one wheel has got to catch up with the other wheel and you know you got, and then how do you stop without crashing? 

It was silly stuff like that, but you know you make games then, you did something. Of course we played pom-pom pull away and you know all the hide and seek stuff here. We had all kind of wars out here with snowballs. The snow here, you know how the wind used to blow, it’s hard snow. You’d cut it out with a saw and throw blocks of it at each other. It was pretty hard chunks of stuff. We all got damaged by it.

Another thing we used to do, we used to sharpen the legs of a ladder, a wooden ladder, stick it in the snow bank, jump up and down on the ring, on the bottom rung and then climb up the ladder, way up to the top and swing back and forth till it broke loose from the snow and fall over.

OK. Huh.

Then of course we’d jump out of the swing to see who could jump the furthest. Even as kids we chewed tobacco. 

You did?

Day’s work and what …

Where did you get the tobacco?

Nuthead would sell it down there to you in the stores, which I finally owned later, those two stores.

and so those, the stores were there when you were growing up?  Was it the Como Mercantile and ?

I put the, the name came off of the other store. I put that name on the Como Mercantile that was on the other store, the older store.

OK. And what was the other store known then?

Oh, gee, it was Dunkin’s store. I don’t remember what they called it.

Was that like a general store, what did they have?

Oh, a little bit of everything, you know . . .

Could you get all your basic groceries right here in Como?

Pretty much. There were people who milked cows and got milk from them. People named McCoy.

Huh. Did you remember much farming close by?

Mostly ranching. Not so much farming. I think they tried to grow potatoes or something out here.

I was told there were some cash crops growing for awhile but I’m not sure when that was. Potatoes. And what about now, did the train come through here at that time?

Oh, yeah. Until ’37 when they took it out. I vaguely remember it.

OK, I was told the kids, the boys used to chase the train. Did you guys do anything around the train in those days?

Well, I was pretty small but yeah, then we did. But and when they took it out the tracks were still in real, built some kind of a cart to go roaring down the tracks on the mountain.

What kind of things did the train bring? Was it supplies or for the mines or tourists or?

Gee, it was for travel from Denver on up and then over the hill over to Breckinridge and on.

So at that point you could go right from Como to Breckinridge yet on the train.

Mostly  . . . I believe so, yeah, that’s where it went, up until ’37 when they quit it and then took out the tracks, probably in about ’38 or later.

Did you remember ever going on the train, family ever go or was that considered too expensive or?

I don’t think we ever did, not that I remember. And, no I don’t remember going on it.

What was your Dad doing when you were growing up in Como?

Well, Dad was mining primarily.

And was he making enough to have the family live on it.

Well, you know, everybody in town was poor then I think. Yeah, that’s primarily what he did and Mom did some teaching and one year we lived at the mine. It snowed in and everything and Mom taught us  and my kid, and my brother skipped a grade, I mean, she taught us better than the teacher was doing.

Wow, what was it like to live, I mean, snowed in? You could not get down?

Well, we did. We had skis and snowshoes, it wasn’t easy but we had to carry the food up there and come down to town to get it and I’d carry a 5 pound Karo can when I was about 7 or so, it was one heavy item.

Why did you do it, was it a money thing or? You know, was it?

Well, we had the cabin and I suppose it was cheaper to live up there, for Dad to mine there and to live here. Then we got the house over here, the Dittman house across the way here.

I would think that would have been really lonely as a kid during the winter.

Ah, gee, we had lots to do. There were three of us and we all had chipmunks all over the place, you know those little ground squirrels, we had them in our pockets, me and my brother had them around in our shirts. They was just pets and fun things.

Now, were you required to help your Dad with the mining?

Me and my brother had our own little sluice box and our own little wheelbarrows and boards leading out to the sluice box and we’d dig the dirt in the wheelbarrow and dump it in and we actually mined, me and my brother when we were about 7, 8 years old.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

Now were you able to keep any of that or did it go for family expenses?

Well, ever since I was even when I was growing up and starting to work and everything I gave half to the house if I was home. And then it was pretty much all went to it. It’s what we needed to survive on. A little tougher than now for sure.

What was, now was this going into the depression time?

Well, see I was born just before the depression. I was born in ’28 and the depression started in ’29.

OK.

So it was tough times then, but I was too young to remember that.

Do you remember your folks talking about it?

Some. I know that times were tough, but families stayed together. Mom and Dad was pretty nice people. I really liked my Dad a lot.

Why?

It was when we misbehaved we got our paddling. It wasn’t like you know, don’t dare touch your own kid now or make him behave.

Yeah, yeah. What did you like so much about your Dad?

Dad was a boxer, he was the Fourth World’s at one time and he killed a man, or he, a guy stole his car and he beat him up so bad he broke his jaw and the doctor gave him too much ether or something and finished him off.  But my Dad was a special guy, he was spiritual.

My Mom was a super Christian, went to church all the time. I’ll tell you a story. I don’t know if this is apropos or whatever, but one time she was coming home from church in Denver and it was snowing and a kid turned a corner in a car and couldn’t see out the window and hit with the side of the car, ran over with the rear wheels. And she said “If I hadn’t a been coming home from church I’d have surely been killed.” And I thought if you hadn’t been to church you wouldn’t get run over at all. She didn’t appreciate that one bit.

She was a, a self-righteous type and my Dad was more real and I know that my Dad saw God when he died cause he took his last breath on purpose. So he was special to me.

When, tell me more then when you moved down to town and your folks, did your Dad continue mining?

Dad mined, I’ve still got some letters between Mom and Dad, and there was a lot of love there, when he was up here and we was down there but I don’t remember the dates or whatever.

OK, so that was when you were pretty little. He was up here mining and you were in Denver?

I think before we actually moved here and then had the house here probably in the thirties. And then when the war started, like I say, Dad moved down to work down there and from then on it was, I joined the Navy and it was within five years. They didn’t electrify the house over here until I got back the Navy in like ’52. Yeah.

The town wasn’t I think electrified until Cooley put it in, the guy with the min out here.

Tell me, we’re kind of looking out on Como. How does this compare, what I’m seeing now compared to when you were growing up?

Well, there used to be a lot more buildings in this town, way back then. Even though there’s a few newer ones and trailers and so on. But there used to be a lot more houses here.

And did they burn down or did they fall down?

Guess a lot of them was abandoned. You know this was kind of a ghost town at one time. Everybody moved out when there was nothing happening. The coal and then the gold mining and now look at it. It is booming as far as people goes. Everybody got a second house now and something.

Did you spend much time in the mountains up above here?

Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah. I’ve been, like I say this particular lost thing that . . . won’t talk too much about.

OK, we can talk about the rest of them. Now your Dad was a gold miner and it sounds like you followed somewhat in his direction at least at times in your life.

I enjoy it and I get pretty expensive metal detectors.

Yeah, I do it some. I have a friend he’s up in Nevada and he struck it rich here the other day. I don’t know how rich, but he found a lot of good gold.

Here?

No, in Nevada.

Oh, in Nevada.

He just wrote me about it.

Oh, how exciting.  When, tell me, tell me as a young man. You said as a child you looked for gold. Then as you got older how did you pursue that?

Oh, I was an electrician. I was made an electrician when I was in the Navy so I got, I was supposed to go to Aircraft Fundamentals and that’s a long story. There wasn’t enough room on the train and then they said, so and so and so step out and I was one of them and that was it the next two weeks later instead of going to Aircraft Fundamentals in Florida from San Diego where boot camp was they put me on the electrician list so I went to school right there and became an electrician.

Ah.

It’s how your life gets changed.

Yeah, but you still had an obvious love for flying. Now you have to tell me the really nasty story about when you were little, that original interest in the propellers.

Well, I don’t know which one you mean. Anyway I was 10 months old in the baby carriage and my mother said “he saw an airplane way off” she wrote it in my baby book or something. “He saw an airplane way off when I was trying to get him to look at a dog.” I always seem like I always wanted to fly and I didn’t and you know I got a few hours early in life

No you’ve got to start - you have to tell me about the horse flies.

Oh, my God. Well, when we were picking those arnica flowers, you know, just a kid instead of working you are playing and I’d get horseflies, those things that was here a minute ago and I’d stick a straw through several of them in one direction and several in the other and they’d spiral around like a propeller going up. Kind of hard on them but . . .

Such a nasty story, but it shows how you’re …

You asked for the dirt.

I’m asking for the, yeah, the good juicy stories. But that really, I think, exemplifies your early interest and fascination.

It’s better than just sticking a straw in one and letting him go off straight I suppose.

 Now, you didn’t get to follow your aircraft dream in the Military?

No, I did it on my own nickel.

OK, that was later on. And you are still a pilot today.

Oh yeah, I’m a very good pilot but now I’ve just got several ultra lights down home. You know, that little yellow one I showed you, cute little thing. But I can do hammerheads with it and stuff, you know. Straight up and then straight down.

Tell me about flying through Como.

Oh, Jeez. I have been in trouble here forever for taking off on just about every street in town just for the heck of it. And landing on it, some of them.

Do you remember the first time you got to fly in?

Oh, gee, probably with the baby ace, a regular airplane, it was an experimental airplane but it was a lot heavier than an ultra light.  And I used to take off and taxi you know from the deal down there that I told you the double doors that folded around the tail of the airport and then I’d taxi off through town and take off right out there by the cemetery.  And land there and then taxi in. One time the cops caught me at the corner. It was the sheriff. I had buzzed somebody. And I was given a ticket and I just made a little circle around cause they had to come in and hassle me. He said “I don’t see any headlights. I don’t see any tail lights. What are you doing on the road?”

And I says, he was making me sit there with the engine idling, you know. It’s ridiculous. While he is looking in his book. So I said “You know where I live.” And I taxied away from him and he’s hated me ever since.

Oh no, and he’s still around?

Norm Howey.

Ooh, OK.

You know him?

He’s on our interview list.

Great, OK.

So we’ll have to ask him that story.

Wait . . .

Break in recording.

OK I’m going to jump around a little bit because in the film there were some names that came up that were famous around here, some old miners’ names and I wonder if you might remember some of the old guys that were around, maybe who worked with your family or who you met during that time.

Yeah, there were several around here, of course Carl Yule (Sp?) was in the gulch opposite us up there when we was up at the mine.

Now, where was the mine?

Up Tarryall, up the Look property up there. The Deadwood they call it, the Deadwood above. See that’s, when the several, Little French, certain creeks get together, and then when the Montgomery comes in then it’s the Tarryall. Beyond that it is the different gulches above.

OK.

But the lead, that was up in the Deadwood area in the Little French area and Carl? was in the Montgomery site and we used to go there to get ice in the summer out of his tunnel.

Out of the tunnel?

There was ice still in the tunnel in the summer. Could make ice cream or something with, you know.

Oh, it’s probably a city question, wouldn’t it taste funny from all the minerals and stuff, or were you used to that?

No, you’d just use the ice to make the ice cream, have you seen the thing you churn?

 OK, then just to keep it cold, I see what you are saying.

So all the milk and all the stuff is in a different container.

I see.

Then you put salt to make it melt fast, just turn the crank, you make ice cream.

Oooh, so you had your own ice cream maker up at the mine?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that sounds fun.

Well, you know, we was poor but we did do a lot yourself.

So tell me about Carl Yung (Young?).

Well he had a mine up there and he hydraulic mined. He had a hose and a dam up above and his thing was you know with hydraulic with a hose squirting the dirt down through the sluice boxes.

Now was that a little fancy, was that considered . . .

Well, it was a way of doing it. It was kind of a rough way. Dad used to do it by hand and scrub every bit of bedrock with a, had rubber gloves and a wife brush with a scraper on the front. Every bit of bed rock had to be scraped totally clean and washed clean in water to get every speck of gold off the bedrock and take up the bedrock. That’s where the gold gets down in the cracks and the clay and all. You have to break it all up. And it’s a tough process.

My goodness. Carl Young, is he an older gentleman?

Yeah, he passed away some years ago, he had the house right down there. The people who are there now have a bunch of pictures if you want to see.

Oh, Neat. OK, and what did you remember about him? Did you teach him anything about mining or did you . . .

Oh, he was an interesting guy. He worked in Denver, I think, during the winter and was up here mining in the summer. I don’t know if he ever made a lot. But, he just enjoyed it. Nice old guy, he was hard of hearing and he had a, he made his own hearing aid. He was really into electronics, made his own TVs and all that stuff. And when everybody else was carrying a hearing aid in a big, you know, with a handle on it? He made one like in a sardine can or something. He was a sharp old man.

Huh. Now, where would he fall in age compared, to say, with your Dad at that time?

Oh, he might have been a little older.

OK, kind of in the same range.

Probably.

Now how far would that have been from where you were?

Oh, it was a couple of miles walk.

And was that typical that people were kind of spaced that far apart who were mining?

No, a lot of them were closer but there wasn’t anybody on our side. This was later, after my Dad and them struck it rich in 1911 and Dad didn’t get married until 1925, so this is when we were growing as kids up there.

 OK, what other old miners were around at that time.

Well, there was an old timer in town named China Mac, he looked yellowish, he looked like a Chinaman. I don’t think he really was. It’s hard to remember who else in town. There was a few up there, a guy named Charlie Barrett had a cabin, the one that’s restored up the gulch here. Where you turn onto the Boreas going over. We stayed there a night or two, you know when we’d come down after food or something, my Dad would visit with him and if it was getting late or something we’d, I’ve slept in that cabin a few times.

Huh, he was a miner also?

I’m not sure what he did. I think he was in mining there. But you know, being young, I’m not sure what he did for sure.

Now the Liebelt name has come up a couple of times.

Yeah, that was right above Dad’s and when Dad and then found the old channel right below his, you know the old channel is where the gold is laid down many years before when it was a stream and now it is no longer a stream, it might be up on the side somewhere and the creek has moved down. And you find the old channel when the gold was laid down and strike it. That is what they did and the old man Liebelt above had that corralled. He had that way back in the 1863 or ‘5 when Lincoln was president. Him and his brother.

Wow.

That’s in the paper. They got eighteen hundred, eighteen thousand dollars in one summer by hand.

Oh my goodness.

At $20 bucks an ounce. That’s now. It may be a little less then.

Huh, and your Dad was just down from there?

Yeah, and Dad and I saw some of the gold and I knew Fritz Liebelt, the son. This is a story that I’ve got to be careful on because I’ve put 60 years on that, I thought I had it corralled but I get

Skunked.

Well, that’s a good word.

All right, we don’t have to tell that if you’re not comfortable, if it’s not time to tell that story.

Well, I’d love to, I’d love to tell it, it is a great story. But they made me sign my life away to get today to check it for these very wealthy people. So. .

OK, well we’ll save it till later.

If I can ever get released for whatever.

OK, let’s see, can you tell me anymore about mining during that time. Is that what most of the guys were doing? Were there any other industries here?

It was kind of tough then. Most of the people here, I think, the few that worked here seemed to work for the County or something.

What kind of County jobs would there have been.

Oh, you know, trucking or snowplowing and that kind of stuff.

OK. And now, would you, was life pretty much centered right here if you were in Como or did you make trips like to Fairplay or . . . you know to some of the neighboring towns?

Occasionally, we did. We had a, somebody had an old panel truck and we used to pay whatever a few cents it was to be taken over to the movie and see a movie over at Fairplay.

Was that the closest movie theater? Can you tell me where the theater was in Fairplay?

I don’t know if there was another one. I never heard of it.

Was the building still there?

You know Mrs. Leach’s place there?

Stan Leach, um-hum.

That was it. Where, if she is still in that same building, I think she is

Right on Main Street in Fairplay. Ok. What kind of movies did you see?

Oh, God, I …

What was playing?

Oh, like Sergeant York. What was the two outlaws, male and female, some of them? I don’t remember the name right now.

OK, outlaw films, can you remember like any famous stars?

Well, not, I liked. What was the name Sergeant York, do you remember at all, remember the name?

I haven’t seen that. I’m not sure who you are talking about.  OK.

SIDE TWO

I’ve met some.

Just a sec . . . OK, we just flipped the tape; I was waiting for the tape to go ahead. We talked; you really didn’t have movie star idols. Now, even in high school, were you already that fascinated by pilots that you were following them?

I think so. I …

Does anyone stand out in memory from that time?

From way back? You know there was a guy here, what was it? George Teeter or something like that who used to fly his own airplane here? I think that’s the right name.

Really!

And of course naturally when I saw a little airplane flying around here that was as fascinating as could be.

Did you get a ride?

Not with him, I joined the Civil Air Patrol, that’s where I got started, my first airplane ride. I was a kid then.

Huh. Well we talked about the movies in Fairplay, what else did you do? Were there dances? Did you go to dances or did you go on camping trips?

Still, but …

Oh, we did, we went fishing a lot. We’d carry, I’d cut the end of a willow pole off, wrap the line around it, stick it in my pocket with a hook on it and that was my fishing, I’d dig a worm out there. Easy.

What about meeting girls here?

Could have cared less about that at the time.

It was better?

Well …

Did they have socials or …

We all played together, the girls and the boys you know. Hide and seek and all the games and things.

Did they have socials? People mention box lunches.

Yeah, they had, you know the town hall down there. The foundation that’s left there, that’s all that’s left now, we had a play, had plays, made us learn all these things. And me and Victor Jacobson, another kid had to sing, what the heck was it? We had to sing a couple of songs. I remember my knees was banging together. You’re kid in a little town and you’re scared to death of a crowd of people and they make you do it.

Yes. They did the same to me, I remember.

Do you? They’re still doing stuff like that.

Sure they are.

Crazy. Now there’s like a lot, I’ve met a lot of great pilots, some of them. I have buried over a hundred friends over my lifetime that have died in airplanes and 12 of them in gyrocopters. Which I belonged to a gyrocopter group for 30 some years.

So that begs the question, why do you keep flying?

Well, you know, my brother had a terrible death. He, you know, tubes in him and you name it, and I’d rather crash and burn any day. I guess I look at an accident as a blessing anymore than dying in a horrible way. I still think there is a karmic thing, what you deserve, you know, so I’ve tried to behave myself in life.

OK, we’re jumping around an awful lot. Tell me, you went to the military, let’s just go back, you grew up in Denver then you came to Como then you guys moved back, right, at some point to Denver. Kind of the war effort.

Yeah, I worked there for awhile at a different job, I worked in a packing house and I got, I guess, 17 or so when I joined the Navy. And that was for four years and then I was frozen in about ’51 for the Korean conflict they call it instead of a war.

OK, were you stationed in Korea then, did you go over?

No, I was in China for awhile, I was on a ship all the time.

What was that like?

Well, they was killing each other hand over foot there. The Nationalists and the Communists were killing each other. Killed like 5,000 people in SingTel while I was there, in one night. Bloodbath. Anybody that, I saved two kids lives. Little bitty Chinese, they didn’t know which side they are on. They’re starving, they’re throwing little baskets with a string on them to gather a grapefruit or something that’s been eaten, a piece of food out in the water. And it was tough and these kids, they were going to blow their brains out. And I had an empty gun, you know, stand and watch with and empty gun which they make you do and I pointed it at these guys and I said “Wait a minute, you’re not going to do anything to them,” and I called for the chief and he went down and argued with them for a long time till they left without killing these kids.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, it is really ridiculous.

So, how did you get past that? That would be a long time memory.

Oh, I just remember it because I’m glad I was able to do some good.

I was frozen for a fifth year, from ’47 to ’52.

OK, then, when you came back, what did you do? A lot of guys are pretty lost it seems.

I worked at different things. I helped. I electrified the prison at the Air Academy there, worked for several electric companies, electrician. Then down home I’m a surveyor. Laid out a whole town site down there.

Ojo Caliente, Arizona, hot water.

Huh. Now you did this electrical work, where were you located then?

I worked at Cheyenne at the missile sights and I had a place there. And at Colorado Springs, union jobs, different places.

OK. How did you end up back there, when did that happen?

Oh, we always had the house and then we sold it after my folks died. And,

But you talked about owning the store in town. When did? You must have lived here for some time.

Yeah, I bought that. I’ll give you some prices if you don’t mind.

Sure, that would be great.

I bought the two stores, the two garages,

Now he is pointing down toward the Mercantile and the other shop, I can’t remember the family name

Yeah, Main Street, I owned the whole Main Street except for two buildings.

Oh, OK.

I built the 12 sided round looking house on the garage, that was after I sold some of the others. Now I put the big store up for auction, it went for $3,000 to Mrs. Link. It has now sold for $240,000.

Oh, doggone it.

I sold the other building I think, the other brick store, the Como store, for I think for $2,600 to Jane Schatterly (sp?) and it’s for sale for $175,000 but they did a lot of improvement on that. The other one I did the improvement.

Now when are we talking about? What years are we talking about selling this to get a perspective?

Sixty six. I remember having a picture of a sign when I put a sign for auction on the main store.

OK, so that was 1966. And we’re looking at 2002, going rates.

Then I sold the garage to a Mr. Gresser (sp?) who I worked for on this mining venture, you know on the Liebelt thing, and put all this land together up there. Tip Edwards and all that up above there.

OK.

Anyway . . .

That was additional land?

The green garage sold for $800 or something and the people said they want a million for it, which is ridiculous.

A million?

Yeah, a million, but that is ridiculous ‘cause it is going to pieces. They just said that when I asked them here. Then the big garage that I built, the round thing that I had the airplane sticking out the front of, I sold that I think for $6,500 and that was the best price that I got but I think he wants forty-five or so thousand now from what I hear. And it has just been left go, let the water run through and it is pretty bad shape inside.

Now which one are we looking at, the, are we looking at the log one down there?

This little one, I built that, too. The six-sided job.

It’s cute, the little six-sided log cabin.

Yeah, a lady named Lucille Soule (Sp?), a nice person she just wanted it and I sold it to her, I think $8,000.

Boy, I wish you’d call me.

Well, I give stuff away, you know and right after I give it away it is worth a lot more.

I think I was only four in ’66 and I probably wouldn’t have been . . .

And I was going to build more and then some people named Tyler came up and just had to have those lots, so I sold them all. And now Greg Snapp (sp?) bought them from her and them.

Are there many people here who were here years ago when you were growing up?

Not near, not nearly, not very many. Snapps came like in the fifties. Not many people here have been here a long time. Spann, I didn’t remember him way back when. You know when you get old enough and remember way back when it’s surprising, there was actually five of us counting Jane and myself and Dick Welch and his sister and Doris Marnella (sp?) are the only people here today who were existing yet that come to this thing. I don’t know if Victor Jacobs is still alive, I visited him in San Diego, he was a mail carrier his whole life.

OK.

He’d be near my age. I don’t know if he is alive now. I hope he is. I thought he was in fair health the last time I saw him a few years ago.

Probably a long way to come for a reunion.

Well, go ahead I’ll try.

OK, we paused for a minute, I wanted to give you a chance to answer my next question which is, what am I not asking you, what am I forgetting to ask? We were saying how there aren’t that many people left from that time and what maybe kind of lessons or things about that life could we learn from. Maybe you can tell me about, what was that mining time like for those guys?

Now, when I was a kid and there weren’t that many people in mining because of the price of gold. It raised, I think in the thirties from $20 to $35.

Now that’s a pretty big jump, I would think that would be helpful to people.

Yeah, but it is nothing enough, only a few people could make it. They had to work really hard all day to make fifty cents or something, it was really tough. I don’t remember a lot of people that was in mining. Tip always played with it, Tip Edwards. And of course there were fortunes made up here and in fact the name of one of the lands is the Fortune. They had a lot, they had steam shovels and dug a lot of ground and this is all from below from where my Dad and they worked and then Liebelt was above them. And it all came from that area. There is some really good gold in that Tarryall Creek,

Wow. Um-hum.

And then Cooley Brothers Sand and Gravel came below there, and that’s where the pictures that the people have that I can probably show you today. They had a dredge, a smaller dredge than the big one over at Fairplay. Right up here on the Tarryall, on the bottom, all the diggings that is down on the bottom was done by them. And that would be a little before the war. In the late thirties I believe.

Do you know what happened to that dredge?

It wound up in Denver and they’re a sand and gravel company and I think they made more at that than they did for the gold up here, but it was an interesting operation that was going on instead of a, a digging machine they had a big drag line, instead of crawlers or something it had two big legs and it walked. It picked itself up and moved itself forward and that’s the way, and then when it wanted to turn it the bottom turned. When the legs were pulled up and it walked into the drink onetime, tipped over, I believe, I remember that as a kid. Yeah.

Huh, what was life like for the women here?

Oh, most of the ladies stayed home and took care of the kids and so on. It wasn’t like working out then, but the men had to work really hard to keep things going.

Did any women ever help in the mine?

Not that I know of. The Silver Heels story that, the name of the mountain is because the guys got her a pair of shoes you know after she was disfigured because she helped them, they got her a pair of shoes with silver heels and that’s why the mountain is named after her, I don’t think they made that clear there.

No.

At least that’s the story as I remember it.

OK. Did you have any conveniences in the house? I mean was it freezing cold in the winter? Did you heat by wood?

We’d gather wood and had wood. Most people didn’t have running water. We was lucky to have a spring there and we had it right down near the house. It wasn’t running water but you’d just get water. You know, it wasn’t as tough as it could have been. You had a roof over your head and you had warmth.

How did you wash clothes?

I think it was pretty much by hand, I think it was a scrub, you know, little board thing.

Um-hum. Did you have chores you had to do?

Oh, yeah. My brother we was living closest to the school here so my brother being a little older and I helped him sometimes he had to start the fires here to warm up the school when the kids come to school ‘cause winters are down cold here. And I think they were more severe then. I don’t know why they don’t seem to be as severe now. But we had terrific winds and

Oh I think, pretty much yet. I don’t think propane, I think it was invented, but I don’t think anybody had it that I can remember.

And did people know, nowadays a lot of people come stay for the summer and they go elsewhere in the winter, did most of you stay all winter long, was it pretty much the standard.

I think most of us did then that lived here. I think we were kind of stuck here. You couldn’t move away. It would have meant renting something in Denver or something, would have been tough. Even though we was in Denver a good part of the time.

Did they plow the roads? Or did you just blast through the snow? Was there more snow then?

Well, they didn’t plow all the roads, I can tell you in the town, but I think they plowed into town. And it was, originally it was a dirt road, it came in in front of the store, wee where that streak is right over the store across from the highway. That was the original road that come into town and then it went straight out of town in the middle street before the highway.  But most of my memory is the highway.

Oh.

I really crashed my bike going down that road. They hauled me to the hospital with a couple of holes in my head where my belt in half.

The hospital, was that the one in Fairplay?

Yeah, took me over to Fairplay.

 I guess that is a good question about medical care, was that pretty much it that you had to go to Fairplay? Was there any kind of like a nurse or local person that you went to?

No, no there wasn’t anything then. If you had to go to a doctor you had to go over there where the doctor was to the little hospital. I think it is a nursing home now or something isn’t it.

I’m thinking it is an apartment building, the brown one is an apartment building now. One of the ladies who went to school with you, Doris, was talking about that she was born there in that hospital so I’m guessing that was the same.

I remember that her family used to live out here in Hamilton, in one of the two towns out here. Yeah.

How far now, you mentioned Hamilton, where is that from here?

It was right up the creek about a mile and a half out here, the creek. One was on one side and apparently the two sites or whatever they were hated each other. There’s a story about it, I don’t know it very well.

Hamilton, what was the other town?

Tarryall. Tarryall and Hamilton.

OK, right across from each other.

Yeah.  I don’t know, two little towns just across from each other or something.

Were those more like mining camps or how did they compare to Como?

I think they were and I was surprised to hear them say there were so many people there ‘cause at one time this was thousands of people here.

Huh, how many people were here when you were growing up? Any idea?

Well, probably some, about twice as much as we’ve got right now ‘cause there were a lot more kids and so on. You know, I don’t know how many is going on the bus but not all that many from here; ‘cause there was a lot more little houses and so on.

It’s pretty quiet today.

Yeah, it got quiet.

Everybody’s taken off after the reunion so we’re looking at a pretty quiet town.

Yeah, well it’s smoky. It’s pretty smokey because of the forest fire down below.

Yeah, some new fires today. Do you remember anything like that happening? We are in a huge fire season now this year so all the tapes are going to be talking about fires. But do you remember as a kid there being ever any big fires or how they fought the fires.

Yeah, there was a few in fact, well I guess you can see them from out at Leon’s there is a burn out there, there’s a couple of burns, but they didn’t, this is so dry that it has gotten so much worse, the burns would, you know, a few acres, 10, 20, 30 acres or something but now look what it’s done. Tremendous . . .

Yeah, I know we’re looking at thousands and thousands of acres this year. Did you have like volunteer firefighters or who, if there was a fire, did all the …

If fire caught fire, one of the sheds down here, where you know, toss bucket, hand and buckets to each other and then dump them on the fire until a bunch of ammunition  started going off and everybody run for it. Right here, right at that building.

When was this?  This is like directly across from the old school and where he is pointing at is a shed down here. Do you remember when this was?

Probably in the late thirties. I remember that right there a baby died and I saw the little baby in a little bitty box when they buried it, it was the Naomi Young family and the Nelsons, I don’t know whose baby it was or whatever. But for some reason my mother seemed to want me to see it, so I remember it.

Huh, were there, was that common, did a lot of babies die, was it difficult to get treatment?

I don’t think so. I think everything was more natural then. I don’t think you had all the doctor protection and nurses coming and all that but most kids seemed to survive then. I think the statistics were, you know it is altered because of the way they keep track of everything now.

And now the cemetery is not too far away.

I know the names of about a third of the people in that cemetery, you know, being old-timers here and so on. And I know an awful lot of people that are in it. Buried my little buddy, my sis whom you met today was married to a guy named Wes Cole and we buried him in ’84. He did himself in with a little too much drink. Long story but he tried to live on buttermilk and vodka and it didn’t work. He died right over here at Fairplay and he was, I took care of him for the last few months and down at my property and then brought him up here and he just started drinking again.

Didn’t make it. Now so, the cemetery now is the same one that has been used all your lifetime.

Um-hum. There are a lot of unmarked graves up there and there is also stones, several stones, you know they’ve got three kids. You remember they had a flu epidemic or something way back in the early 1900s, and there is like, I know there are two tombstones that have three kids’ names and some of them died days apart. Can you imagine the family losing all their kids?

Now could you dig graves in the winter time? Was it too cold?

I’m sure they had to. Me being young I didn’t have to, although I helped in later life with a few graves up there. But since I’ve been in Arizona for many years I haven’t lived here in the winters, but I come early and go late and there is still plenty of snow around but not nearly as severe as I remember it.

Is there anything else that you can tell us that maybe you’d give advice to young people about? Now that you’re wise and experienced?

Can’t think of a thing if you want to know the truth. Look at the mess that people are making out of the world. Jeez. Well, everybody’s killing each other over nothing, you know, over mostly religion. Look at the bloodbath of the world, you know, I’m right in my faith and you’re wrong and they kill each other over it.

Were you raised in a particular faith? You said your Mom was quite religious, Christian.

Well, we was raised as Catholics and it has taken me a lifetime to get over it. I’d rather be a spiritual person than a religious person.

Did you go, was there a Catholic church here, did you go to church?

You know, the thing, it was right over there but it was closed when we was kids. I don’t remember it as being open. And I think there was a couple of bars in town and there was a couple of houses of ill repute here.

Really! Tell me about that?

It was before my time but I remember it because they had doors entering. The red one, the one you can just see a little bit of through there, that one. And then the pink house down on the far corner. That’s what I’ve always heard.

And now they were closed already when you were growing up that you didn’t remember?

I don’t think that people would have tolerated it then. I don’t think there was much drinking or much, you know… it was a pretty nice town.

Are we talking the thirties at that point? Now because there are certainly a lot of stories down at the Fairplay side of going up toward Alma about those mining towns and a lot of brothels and bars.

Well, see, that was before my time also, probably, right? Was it in the thirties?

It was in the thirties.

Really? I was a kid and I didn’t …

They kept that quiet form you.

I didn’t have knowledge of it I guess.

OK, did many people who were here mining go up that way? I mean, did people kind of go back and forth or were you more when you picked an area you stayed there?

Pretty much, it was harder to travel far and all. I’m glad that I lived in a good era because when I got like 16 or something I had a car, I got my own car, I bought a car.

Really, what did you buy?

Well, the first one was a Model A and it had a bad engine, but the best car I had was a 1929 Oldsmobile and I would have to think what year it was I got it, you know, it was a used car. I don’t remember, I was 16 or so.

Who taught you to drive?

Jeez, I think you just learn it. I guess I did with my Dad some, but it wasn’t like we had a car “I’ll teach you drive” you know, you just learn it. And of course there were cars there just sitting there with steering wheel and all the stuff used as a compressor for the mines.

So you’d get in and try.

It’s just sitting there and they’re using the, and I remember when I was a kid. This is silly. I’m in the car and I’m just imagining I’m going here and I’m going there and I turn right and I turn right again and pretty soon I come to a stop I didn’t think about turning it out to go straight, right. Silly stuff.

Stuck, even not moving. OK, well I have a little time left. I’m going to jump back because we’ve jumped all over with you. We keep getting side-tracked.

That’s the way my mind works anyway.

Mine too, so together we’re jumping. I never asked you about if you ever got married or had kids?

Yeah, I got married three times .

OK.

To two different ladies.

Wait a minute!

I did, I got married to one twice and divorced her twice. We were mostly friends here till a few months ago. But she’s been married eleven times, several times, quite a few times after I married her the last time.

Who was your first wife?

Laura, and I’ve got a mentally retarded son by her.

What’s his name?

Paul.

Paul.

Paul David. I’m Paul Anthony. And then Donny, whom you met today, Donny is my stepson, her son. And I raised her for about 30, we’re buddies now.

Your second wife?

And then, very pretty girl that is why she was married eleven times but she’s impossible to live with and eleven guys found it out, right?

What was her name?

Sarah.

Sarah, OK. And then your third wife?

Same Sarah, I was foolish enough to marry her twice. And then I spent a lot of time with her until you know, I guess we last divorced in like ’80 something and I saw her not too many months ago and now.

Didn’t want to skip your family because we kind of jumped into other stories and now…

Everybody here loved little Paul, my mentally retarded . . .

He lives up here?

No, he’s down there now, just a few blocks from me, but

And how old is he now?

He’s in his forties now, 45. But every animal in town loved him; every kid in town loved him. Every kid could get him to do whatever they wanted and he is a pretty interesting kid.

So he grew up in Como? Is this when you ran the store then?

Yeah, part of, there was kids here, went to school over here and when they …

Over here being …

Being Fairplay, because this was shut down. And then in Alma, for whatever reason they went to Alma, I’ve forgotten what it was.  But he went to Alma, I remember, there for awhile. It’s a Civic Building or whatever it is now.

Town Hall. And then did he graduate from there?

No, no, as I say, he’s a little slow, but he’s very loving and sweet natured and everybody liked him and, in fact . . .dog was like his dog, everywhere he went that dog went. Loved him. I’ll tell you a story about him, when we moved down to Arizona he came home with a sidewinder rattlesnake in a sock.  You tell me how he got a dangerous little snake to get in that sock without getting bitten. He is remarkable with animals.

They know he is a gentle soul.

Yeah. Yeah.

OK, anything else you want to add before we close today?

Well, you are a sweet lady. I’m glad to meet you.

It was a pleasure to meet you, too. And it’s neat to be able to sit here and talk about actually looking at the town of Como because it is a special place.

Well, it is an interesting town. There are some nice people in here yet. Greg and Bonnie are really sweet people.

Do you have a favorite memory from here that . . . ?

Oh, the thing I guess I like and enjoy was the flying here. And that all came later. I’ve been flying out of here for some thirty some years I guess now.

It’s pretty spectacular, I bet, from a plane.

Well, it’s interesting. Like last Saturday we was over flying the forest fire, 16,200 feet. We had to be above 15,000 to overfly the ? bombers and all. Was going to fly today but it didn’t quite happen.

We’ll count our blessings today ‘cause at least it is beautiful and there is no fire too close to us today.  But I just want to thank you so much for talking to me.

All righty.  I’m glad to.

End of tape side 2

End